When Makoto Was True
by somethingrandom1234
Summary: People are not born evil. Things that happen in their lives shape who they are. Hanamiya Makoto is no different. (a short KnB fanfic)


Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroko no Basket. All rights go to proper owners.

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Hanamiya Makoto was born on January 12. He's a Capricorn, for those who worship Midorima Shintaro.

Makoto was born from his mother's womb like any other baby. His parents were delighted to have a son, and lovingly named him "Makoto," which meant "true" in Japanese. They wanted him to grow up to be a wonderful and kind, truthful person.

His parents, who said they would support him forever, raised Makoto fondly. He started to play basketball when he was 5 years old, and his passion started to expand as he grew older.

His father was his coach and would often play one-on-one with him, although Makoto never seemed to be able to win against the bigger man.

The Hanamiya family often watched the NBA tournaments together after dinner. Makoto would always cheer when shots were landed, loving the swishing sound of the basketball against the net when it landed perfectly inside the rim. He admired all of the players in the NBA and often tried to impersonate their moves when he practiced basketball.

He had other hobbies besides basketball too. Makoto loved to read. He would often go to the school library and check out as many books as his red wagon that his father had made him could hold.

But he didn't read fantasies and fiction. Makoto enjoyed reading non-fiction books. Everyday, he read and read, pouring more knowledge into his brain. It wasn't a wonder when he was recognized as top scorer on the standardized test in 2nd grade.

Makoto loved school. His favorite subject was math, where equations fit snug inside his brain and operation facts were printed inside his memory.

He had remarkable memory for his age, which intrigued his parents. Soon, his family doctor recognized that he had photographic memory, in which he had the ability to remember information or visual images in great detail.

Makoto loved his life and his family. That was until he became 9 years old and his mother had another child.

He had been excited and happy to have a younger sibling at first. But those feelings vanished the second his parents came through the door, cradling the new bundle of life. When this baby came through the doorframe, all eyes went to the newborn.

His grandmother who had been watching over him while his mother was in the hospital had rushed over and cooed about how adorable the baby was. Makoto's parents had ignored him when had ran up to them to give them a hug. Instead, they smiled at the baby.

Makoto was left there; arms wide open, embracing nothing.

He never got spared a second glance after that.

All attention was focused on the baby. The baby's name was Eiji, which meant "second born one" in Japanese. This was bitter knowledge for Makoto; even though Eiji was second born he was treated with such special care that the first born one had not even received.

Makoto's self esteem plunged deeper than the hearts of players who the Generation of Miracles had beaten mercilessly to win their third championship.

His incredible straight A grades were recipients of blank looks from his parents. His basketball games were treated to little or no interest from his father.

Everyone in the household was busy spoiling Eiji rotten. Eiji had drooled all over Makoto's precious library books and hadn't gotten scolded at all. Instead, his mother blamed Makoto for leaving his books out in the open, and had made him pay the damage fund with his own allowance.

Excuse him, but Makoto had left his books safe and snug inside his room; Eiji was the one who had snooped around and found the stash of books. But his mother wouldn't listen to that kind of nonsense.

Soon, Makoto gave up trying to get his parents' attention. He watched over the years as they raised Eiji to be a spoiled brat.

One day, his parents had to go to a work meeting for a few hours and assigned a babysitter to look after them. Oops, no, wait, they hired a babysitter to look after _Eiji_ , not Makoto. Makoto could just jump off a roof and die, for all they cared.

That night took the worst turn of events. The babysitter was a teenager who knew hardly anything about taking care of a small child. She was on her phone the whole time, not even watching Eiji.

That was when horror struck. Eiji had been playing with one of his hero figurines when he found a piece of plastic on the floor which had probably broken off of one of his mother's miniature house sets. The child didn't know what hazards came with putting small fragments of a hard material in his mouth, so he sucked the shard of plastic and accidentally swallowed it.

Eiji started choking on the piece and the babysitter panicked. She didn't know what to do when a child started choking and fear was driven too deep into her mind for it to occur to her that calling an ambulance would be a good idea. Poor little Eiji died that night from lack of oxygen while he was choking.

Makoto had been playing basketball outside the house the entire time, not aware of what had been happening.

When Makoto's parents found out about Eiji's death, they were distraught and furiously grief-stricken. How could the babysitter let Eiji die while he was on her watch?

But during the questioning of the babysitter, she said that Eiji had been perfectly fine before Makoto came in and shoved something down Eiji's throat. She acted all hysterics and said that she could do nothing as Eiji choked to death, since Makoto had apparently been threatening to stab her with a kitchen knife if she got close to Eiji. Then the babysitter burst out into tears.

She had falsely accused Makoto of murder just to get herself off the hook. And the worst part was that Makoto's parents actually believed that Makoto had killed Eiji.

When they returned from the interrogation, they beat Makoto to the bone. His father aimed punches all over his body while his mother screamed at him in the background. Makoto's father had even gotten a whip out and had lashed Makoto with the coiled rope dozens of times.

In the end, Makoto was left with bruises all over his body and slashes of red buried into his skin. He was sent to court after that. Authorities questioned his injuries, but Makoto's parents just answered that he had taken a horrid fall down the stairs.

Fortunately, the authorities had been able to prove the babysitter's accusation wrong. Actually, a single witness had changed the whole perspective of the situation. One of the Hanamiya family's neighbors had said they had seen Makoto playing basketball outside during the apparent time of the crime.

This neighbor was a mother who lived across the street. She spoke of how she and her sons admired how great Makoto was at basketball and liked to just stop by his house while they were taking one of their nighttime walks and watch him practice.

Makoto always had noticed them watching but pretended not to see them. It was the only time he could flash his best moves and have them actually appreciated.

After that witness report, the babysitter broke and admitted that she had not been watching Eiji carefully and Eiji himself had put the piece of plastic in his mouth, not knowing he would suffocate from it.

The babysitter received her punishments from the judge and was sentenced to jail for two years.

Makoto was released as an innocent. But his parents wouldn't take him back. They still believed it was his fault that Eiji died and disowned Makoto.

Makoto couldn't bring himself to care. He wasn't going to live with people who had ignored him for most of his life and beaten him up. He willingly left the Hanamiya household. That was when he was 12.

From then and on, Makoto got public education by scholarship. He worked 3 part-time jobs and lived in a cheap apartment, continuing basketball as well. Except in a completely different form.

Makoto found that he enjoyed the suffering of others. It reminded him of what he had to go through, and it gave him delight that others would feel his pain too. He won in basketball by foul play and relished every second of seeing the despairing faces of his opponents as they lost in a sport they put their heart and effort in.

He loved the pained faces of the players he injured. If he had had to go through all that pain, everyone else in the world should too.

When Makoto met Kiyoshi Teppei, he hated him immediately. He wanted to destroy this guy who represented everything he hated. So he did. When Makoto destroyed Kiyoshi's knee, he felt maniacal joy in harming him as well as crushing his teammates' souls. He couldn't help himself; this was just a taste of his own pain and everyone was too weak to handle it.

And then Kuroko Tetsuya and Kagami Taiga came along, wrecking Makoto's spiderweb trap, earning the wrath of Hanamiya Makoto. But Makoto especially hated Kuroko; the phantom boy reminded him too much of himself when he was younger and got ignored by his parents. Makoto swore to himself that Seirin would pay dearly for beating and humiliating him.

Hanamiya Makoto was not as born the evil, pain-loving boy we know him as. He actually cared about many things in his early life. But his childhood turned into a nightmare and so it changed him drastically as well.

His pain never gave him the right to harm others, but he knew no other way to soothe his agony.

And there's another thing he's been hiding all these years:

Hanamiya Makoto still has those scars from the whip.


End file.
